This invention relates to a searching boat and a method for searching a spillage oil on the sea.
A conventional method of searching a spillage oil is described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Prepublication (Kokai) No. 165689/1991. This conventional method comprises a first step of preparing first through N-th buoys having transmitters, weights, and resistive boards, respectively, the first through the N-th buoys having first through N-th form rates of upper portions and lower portions relative to draft levels of the first through the N-th buoys, respectively, where N represents an integer greater than two, the first through the N-th form rates being consecutively increased by a constant value between 0.7 and 1.1, both inclusive; a second step of dropping the first through the N-th buoys on an oil film of a spillage oil on the sea, a third step of preparing a direction finding device and a distance measuring device in a searching ship or a searching plane; a fourth step of receiving, in the direction finding device, transmitted signals from the transmitters to find directions of the first through the N-th buoys relative to the direction finding devices; and a fifth step of receiving, in the distance measuring device, to measure distances from the first through the N-th buoys to the distance measuring device.
In this conventional method, one of the first through the N-th buoys has a buoy speed which is approximately equal to a speed of the oil film of the spillage oil. As a result, this conventional method is capable of searching the spillage oil on the sea.
However, inasmuch as, in this conventional method, only one of the first through the N-th buoys has the buoy speed which is approximately equal to the speed of the oil film of the spillage, namely, this conventional method is incapable of detecting edges of the oil film, this conventional method is incapable of searching an area of the oil film of the spillage oil on the sea.